Being "Woke" is Trendy

The other day, I saw on Twitter that there was going to be a protest only fifteen blocks from my house. I grabbed my signs, my parents, my phone and left the house. I marched, I yelled, and I tweeted about my excitement for this new era of mass political involvement. At the march, a particular sign caught my eye: “Protests are the new brunch.” What a funny sign, right? That’s what I thought at first.

When I got the email for Friday’s walkout, all of my previously existing excitement for the new age of political involvement was gone. I knew that the “walk out” would just be another protest to make a community of people in privilege think that they are “woke” and “doing something.”

The captions of their pictures all include comments like #notmypresident and #feminist. But when you ask them to sit down and have a serious conversation on the topic of immigration or race, their previous interest in the political suddenly vanishes. “I’m not a political person,” they say.

Last Friday’s protest was yet another display of this so-called “liberal wokeness.” Kids clapped and raised their fists in recognition of names they probably had never heard before. Phillips Exeter posted on their Instagram talking about how proud they were of their intelligent, politically involved students. News outlets went on to praised the school’s social conscience. It was all a giant public stunt to inflate students’ egos.

This isn’t to say that people who participated out of legitimate care are wrong. They were doing what they could to create change. The students who thought this first walkout would act as a substantial remedy, after which they could retire from participating in marches, these are the people who need to change.

Looking back, “protests are the new brunch” isn’t a funny sign. It’s simply telling a sad truth—the truth that protests have become trendy and that p***y hats have turned into a fashion statement. People think wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt will help solve racism, and that their feminist sweatshirt will make an employer rethink paying a man more than a woman.

Now, this isn’t to say that doing any one of those things is wrong. Clothing can represent your values, and protests can bring about social change. The problem is when people do it half heartedly, when they do it to get some form of a social “brownie point.” A lot of important ideas can be lost. People who care and want to make change can be dismissed and their passion can be considered just a fad.

Students are not the only ones that present themselves as “woke liberals” without fully acknowledging the topic. Institutions and companies do so as well. As I previously stated, Exeter is a common perpetrator of this. They post on Instagram about how impressive their students are and advertise their activism in admission booklets. They have “Days of Dialogue” and invite mostly liberal speakers to campus. Everything is a “good start.” But when organizations such as ALES and Fem Club try to take a “good start” and make real social change, they are ignored.

Companies do this too. During the Women’s March, McDonald's flipped their iconic yellow arches to create a “W” for women. They said it was their way of inspiring social change. They marketed it, aggressively pushing the idea that they are a “woke” company. Yet McDonald's still won’t pay their working mothers a higher salary. It’s just another company making a “good start.”

McDonald's isn’t the only company either—Barbie has dolls for inspirational women. Google is featuring apps and games developed by celebrating women in technology in the Google Play Store. Walmart’s CEO criticized Trump’s comments on Charlottesville.

That’s great and all. Kudos to you all. Now do something.

Make a Barbie look like something other than a stick, which would stop young girls from thinking that their natural bodies are not beautiful. If you are the CEO of Walmart, realize that you need to teach your employees to not go on racist rants towards customers and that locking up hair products used primarily by people of color, while not locking up products meant for straight hair, is not okay.

Last winter, when I went to protests, read articles and called representatives, I was excited. I thought that people finally cared. But my naïve bubble has been burst and I can see that people, institutions and corporations are only liberal at face value. They present themselves as good samaritans, but when it comes to creating real change, they are unwilling to act.

You may be a perpetrator of this. You can feel guilty and upset at yourself for a moment or two, but now you know. Now you know that you can’t keep living this way. Now you know that you need to act.